Sam Tennant has been brutally murdered in an online computer game. What's worse, it looks like his killers are out to get him in real life too. 'The Emperor' and 'OllyG78' say they know him from school, and soon turn his classmates against him with their vindictive website.

With his father away, his mother preoccupied with a particularly difficult work case, and his dying granddad absorbed in some dark, wartime secrets of his own, Sam's only support comes from terminally shy Abby and Stephen the resident class nerd.

As the threats become more sinister, Sam faces a desperate struggle to identify his persecutors before things get really deadly.